saftey first!

Saftey safety safety!

So yesterday morning, I did some crisis and human behaviour training with the rest of my team IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. It was actually a lot of fun and I learned a lot about disasters that have befallen us in the past.

The biggest disaster that ever happened to our fleet was on board the Star or so years ago… Here is a link to the video.. see for yourself.

Passengers stood around taking this video before the crew even knew the ship was on fire (thus we see how stupid people can be in an emergency). Basically what happened is someone flicked a cigarette overboard (or it simply was blown over by the wind) and instead of falling into the sea, it fell onto a towel resting on the railing of a balcony below.
Now, safety on the decks of our ships is INTENSE, but no one ever thought that we would have to deal with a fire OUTSIDE trying to get in.

The crew alert was sounded at 3am in the morning and all the passengers evacuated to their muster stations. Our fire fighters fought the fire for three hours until it was extinguished. Passengers were held in the muster stations for over 8 hours, to ensure the ship was structurally sound enough to continue to the next port.
Can you imagine. How terrified you would be. To hear the crew alert sound at 3am. Apparently passenger son the other side of the ship didn’t want to leave their cabins. People wanted the bars opened. They were ON THE VERGE of evacuating the ship, and people wanted to drink. So you can see, that crisis training is very important. The ship was saved by the high fog sprinklers we have in every cabin, on every deck. If we had regular sprinklers like some of the older ships at the time… my goodness.

What happened on the Star is an excellent example of a crisis that was very well managed- everything went according to plan and not a single life was lost (or injury sustained). Also, all areas are now fitted with smoke detectors and hi-fog system. Also, in the passenger drill they now make a really big deal of smoking & balcony saftey.

But… can you imagine looking out your cabin window and seeing that? This is why you shouldn’t smoke!!

Also someone mentioned that once on an alskan run, a ship hit a whale carcass and it got stuck to the bow! So they sailed into harbour with a stinky dead whale on the front of the boat, which had to be cleared before the passengers saw it.. can you imagine? hahah